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Christmas Appeal 2012: Help children have a holiday

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Twins Jack and Lilly Shaw enjoyed the holiday of their lives this summer.

Today, the Mercury is launching our Christmas Appeal 2012 to help hundreds of youngsters just like them – whose only chance of a summer break is a trip to Leicester Children's Holiday Centre, in Mablethorpe.

We want to raise £65,000 for the centre to pay for vital upgrades to its boiler and central heating system – and we need your help to reach that target.

The centre has been providing seaside holidays for underprivileged youngsters from Leicestershire for more than a century.

Among the children to visit this year were eight-year-old Jack and Lilly, of Loughborough, who spent a week there in July after mum, Melanie, found out about the charity through the youngsters' school. Melanie, 32, said: "Money's tight for everybody at the moment, so when the chance came to send them on the holiday, we took it.

"It was the only holiday they had this year. They were both keen to go.

"They loved it. They were so bubbly, telling me what they had been doing, – they were so excited."

The youngsters came back from the trip full of confidence having enjoyed a week of playing on the beach, visiting shops and watching films at night as a treat.

Lilly said: "What I liked was going to the beach because you got to go into the sea and dig a really big hole.

"We played games and I made lots of friends. I liked the shells on the beach, the swirly ones were nice.

"I thought the holiday was really fun and we got to buy sweets."

Jack said: "I loved playing on the beach and the weather was nice. I would like to go back."

Melanie said: "They're only allowed to take a maximum of £10 spending money. Lilly bought a little dolphin snow globe for me.

"It takes pride of place in my display cabinet now. It was touching

that she spent some of the little spending money she had on me."

The charity has provided holidays for more than 54,000 children, aged seven to 11.

It costs about £130,000 a year to run the centre and send about 350 children in groups of 64 over the six weeks of the summer holidays.

However, the committee is in desperate need of cash – most importantly £65,000 to revamp the boiler and central heating system.

Chairman Jim Roberts said: "There are so many children stuck in certain lifestyles where, perhaps, their parents are poor, or one is absent or in hospital, or the youngsters themselves are carers.

"The holiday is about showing them there is something better, their life can be better in the future.

"It is critical we revamp the boiler and central heating. The weather is not always so kind to us up there, and hot water is always needed."

He urged readers to get involved, by donating or fund-raising to help the centre. He said: "If we can do little things for our children now, then they can go on to do fantastic things for us in the future."

Christmas Appeal 2012: Help children have a holiday


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